New Netherlands Company given a three year monopoly on the fur trade in North America

1653:

Issak Walton publishes "The Compleat Angler"

1684:

French Rocco painter Antoine Watteau born

1731:

English chemist-physicist Henry Cavendish, discoverer of hydrogen born

1733:

France declares war on Austria over the question of Polish succession

1738:

Benjamin West, painter. born

1789:

In Versailles France, Joseph Guillotin says the most humane way of carrying out a death sentence is decapitation by a single blow of a blade

1813:

This may have been Verdi's birthday. There are no records to prove it, but this was the day Verdi celebrated it. born

1845:

The U.S. Naval Academy was formally opened at Fort Severn, Annapolis, Maryland

1853:

Wagner met Liszt for the first time. The introduction was performed by Liszt's 15-year-old daughter Cosima. Cosima would go on to marry the conductor Hans von Bulow... then leave him to marry Wagner

1877:

Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer is buried at West Point in New York

1886:

The tuxedo dinner jacket made its American debut at the autumn ball in Tuxedo Park, New York

1900:

Actress Helen Hayes born

1911:

Revolution in China begins with a bomb explosion and the discovery of revolutionary headquarters in Hankow. The revolutionary movement spread rapidly through west and southern China, forcing the abdication of the last Ch'ing emperor, six-year-old Henry Pu-Yi

1911:

The Panama Canal opens

1915:

Jazz musician Harry "Sweets" Edison born

1915:

Producer Owen Bradley born

1920:

Jazz great Thelonius Monk born

1930:

British playwright Harold Pinter born

1933:

At Rio de Janeiro, nations of the Western Hemisphere sign a non-aggression and conciliation treaty

1935:

George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess" opened on Broadway

1938:

Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia's

1942:

Actor Peter Coyote born

1946:

Entertainer Ben Vereen born

1946:

Singer John Prine born

1946:

Actor Charles Dance born

1947:

Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony was premiered in St. Petersburg, called Leningrad at the time. The Sixth has one of the most unusual beginnings of any symphony; it sounds like a laugh

1948:

Rock singer-musician Cyril Neville (The Neville Brothers) born

1949:

Actress Jessica Harper born

1953:

Singer-musician Midge Ure born

1955:

Singer David Lee Roth born

1957:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to the finance minister of Ghana (Komla Agbeli Gbdemah) after the official had been refused service in a Dover, Delaware, restaurant

1959:

Country singer Tanya Tucker born

1961:

Musician Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet) born

1963:

Rock musician Jim Glennie (James) born

1963:

A dam burst in northern Italy, drowning an estimated 3,000 people

1966:

U.S. Forces launch Operation Robin, in Hoa Province south of Saigon in South Vietnam, to provide road security between villages

1967:

Rock musician Mike Malinin (Goo Goo Dolls) born

1968:

Luciano Berio's Sinfonia was premiered with the New York Philharmonic and the Swingle Singers. One movement mixed dissonant material with a complete symphonic movement of Mahler

1970:

Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte was kidnapped by the Quebec Liberation Front, a militant separatist group. (Laporte's body was found about a week later.)

1970:

Fiji became independent after nearly a century of British rule

1973:

Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned under an agreement with the Justice Department to plead no contest to income tax evasion charges. He was fined $10,000 and placed on three years' probation

1979:

Singer Mya born

1980:

Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope network dedicated

1985:

Actor Yul Brynner died in New York at age 65

1985:

Actor-director Orson Welles died in Los Angeles at age 70

1987:

The Reverend Jesse Jackson formally launched his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in Raleigh, North Carolina

1987:

Britain's Tom McClean finished rowing across the Atlantic, setting a record for a west-to-east crossing in 54 days, 18 hours

1988:

Vice President Bush and Democrat Michael Dukakis prepared for their second debate of the 1988 campaign, scheduled to take place in three days

1989:

South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that eight prominent political prisoners, including African National Congress official Walter Sisulu, would be unconditionally freed, but that Nelson Mandela would remain imprisoned